1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service providing method of a service control system used for the repair work of vehicles and sales of vehicle parts.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, there has been proposed an apparatus which is mounted on a vehicle and which monitors the condition of parts and equipment constituting the vehicle, and consumables such as engine oil which is being used, and when a problem occurs in the vehicle, guides the vehicle to a place such as an outlet or a service station, which provides services such as checking, replacement, replenishment and supplement of the parts, equipment and consumables.
As such apparatus, there can be mentioned an information presentation apparatus described in, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. Hei 10-103987. This information presentation apparatus comprises; a monitoring unit which monitors the condition of the vehicle, equipment mounted on the vehicle, or the degradation level of consumables, a position measurement unit which measures the current position of the vehicle, and a destination determination unit which determines a guided destination based on the condition of the vehicle and the current position. When the necessity for checking, replacement, replenishment or supplement of parts, equipment or consumables arises in the vehicle, the information presentation apparatus displays the route information to the guided destination, such as an outlet or a service station, based on the current position, to thereby notify the driver of the vehicle.
However, even if the above described information providing apparatus is used, there is a problem in that when being guided to an outlet or a service station and requesting repair or the like, there may be a case where there is no stock of the part or consumable, or a case where checking, replacement, replenishment or supplement cannot be performed right away. Therefore, a user has to go to the outlet or service station twice for checking and for replacement of the part.
On the side of the outlet or service station, there is such a problem that since the information providing apparatus automatically determines the outlet or service station to which the vehicle is guided, based on the situation of the problem occurring in the vehicle and the position information of the vehicle, free competition between the outlets and the service stations is not possible.
Moreover, since the information providing apparatus notifies the user of the servicing period of the vehicle, such as appropriate replacement time for parts, not relying on the judgment of the user, then vehicles serviced many times heretofore according to the judgment of the user become subjected to servicing at appropriate times. Therefore, there is a merit to the user, but demerit for the outlets and the service stations in that their income may decrease.
In view of the above situation, it is an object of the present invention to provide a service providing method of a service control system used for repair work of vehicles and sales of vehicle parts based on the information obtained by the vehicle itself, wherein appropriate information is provided to users and vehicle component facilities as well as outlets, to thereby improve the benefit and convenience of the whole system.
The service providing method according to the first aspect of the present invention uses a service control system. This service control system comprises: a determination apparatus which is mounted on a vehicle and determines the condition of repair parts; an information center which controls determination information output from the determination apparatus; outlets which manage the stock of the repair parts and the repair work of the vehicle; and a communication network which connects the vehicle, the outlets and the information center.
The service providing method comprises: transmission processing in which the determination information is transmitted from the determination apparatus to the information center; service condition selection processing in which service conditions related to the outlets transmitted from the information center are offered to an administrator of the vehicle in response to the transmission of the determination information so as to allow the administrator to select a desired service condition from the service conditions; service condition notification processing in which the desired service condition selected by the administrator is transmitted to the information center; and service confirmation processing in which the outlet corresponding to the desired service condition or the information center transmits confirmation information with respect to the desired service condition to the administrator.
As a result, when the necessity for repair work arises in a vehicle, a repair request desiring repair work is transmitted to the information center, to request the information center to mediate with an outlet which performs repair work. Then, a plurality of service conditions of respective outlets is transmitted from the information center. Therefore, the administrator of the vehicle selects a desired service condition, and notifies the information center of the selection from the vehicle. The confirmation information of the outlet mediated by the information center is transmitted, depending on the service condition selected by the administrator of the vehicle, and hence the administrator inputs a response to the confirmation information, which becomes a final confirmation of agreement.
The service providing method according to the second aspect of the present invention uses the same system as that of the first aspect, and comprises: transmission processing in which the determination information from determination apparatus and identification information of the vehicle are transmitted from the vehicle to the information center; outlet selection processing in which at least one outlet capable of providing repair work correspond to the determination information for an administrator of the vehicle corresponding to the identification information is selected; service information providing processing in which a repair request for the vehicle is transmitted to selected outlets; service condition relay processing in which the information center receives service conditions of the selected outlets transmitted from the selected outlets in response to the transmission of the repair request, and transmits the service conditions to the administrator so as to allow the administrator to select a desired outlet; and service mediation processing in which contract completion information for the repair work is transmitted to the desired outlet.
According to the second aspect, the information center, on receiving a request for repair work together with the identification information from the vehicle, selects an outlet capable of providing repair work of the vehicle, for the administrator, based on the information of the administrator of the vehicle corresponding to the identification information. Then, the information center notifies the selected outlet of the information of the repair request and proposes the service condition to the outlet. The information center notifies the administrator of the vehicle of the proposed service conditions of each outlet, and when the administrator selects a desired service condition, transmits the contract completion information to the outlet which has proposed the service condition selected by the administrator, to thereby mediate the agreement between the administrator and the outlet.